294 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



to its own chances of support, will grow up a scurvy, ill-shaped, 

 unsiglitly thing ; and one or two generations will bring it back to 

 even a worse creature than its most distant sire. 



Just so it is with the plant. High cultivation has produced all 

 our valuable plants. Some of them, at least, have sprung from an 

 apparently worthless vegetable, but by proper care and culture, 

 they have been made the necessary dependence of man. But let 

 them be left to the starving, slovenly methods of poor farmers, and 

 it is impossible to tell how soon they may be utterly lost. They 

 must be fed — they must be kept free from thieving weeds that rob 

 them of their food — they must have all circumstances made the 

 most favorable, in order to retain their present state. The con- 

 stant tending is to degenerate. We have s(»me drawings of plants 

 which show this tendency in a remarkable degree. We hope at 

 some future time, to lay them before our readers. 



The effort of the farmer should be not only to raise the greatest 

 quantity to the acre, but to make that quantity at the same timt 

 the most valuable for the purposes for which it is intended. 



GARDENING. 



A good garden is an essential part of the comfort of a family 

 and is generally too much neglected by the farmer. He woul 

 find himself largely repaid if he would pay more attention to thi 

 branch of his business, and set apart a small portion of land fo 

 the cultivation of those vegetables which require more attentio. 

 than the ordinary farm crops. And in villages, every one who ca: 

 obtain it, has a high estimate of his garden spot. The relaxatio 

 it affords, for a few moments in the day, to the professional man- 

 the exercise before breakfast, and after the business of the day i 

 over — the luxury of vegetables, fresh from the ground, and th 

 fruit of his own labor, are all considerations of no little conse 

 quence. The cultivation of the soil, even in a small way, is a 

 improvement to the body and the mind, and a man whose heart i 



